Son and sand

My son is staying with me for a few days. Last night he and I spent a little time doing a really simple chore and he really took to it. He is 10. I have some play sand in a bucket and said we need to transfer it into plastic soda bottles using a small hand shovel and a funnel. He enjoyed watching the effect of the sand falling into the bottle and likened it to a tornado (he is currently obsessed with tornados and the Weather Channel). He filled 3 bottles.

Then we went to the backyard to one of the holes. These holes are not very big in diameter, maybe 1-2 inches, but in probing with a dowel I found that they can be pretty deep. They appear around roots and stumps of long gone trees. I showed my son how to pour the sand in, slowly, so that we don't leave any air pockets. Then poke with the dowel a bit, then keep going until full. He enjoyed that too.

I explained to him that if we don't do this NOW, then LATER on in the year the yellow jackets will have an easy place to set up shop. He doesn't get details on the first go around, so he immediately flinched and cowered thinking he'd get stung. I had to remind him I meant MONTHS FROM NOW, not NOW.

So, this morning, he was all excited about going around the yard and filling more holes. He forgot that he had to go to school. He will be with me all weekend, so I expect him to be a master hole filler by Sunday.

I bought some dirt and "weed and brush" killer too. Filling in the depression where the gravel walkway was will be one thing to do over the weekend, and spraying poison ivy, another. The air filter in the air conditioning needs changing, which is an interesting job that my son may enjoy helping with. It's not just a simple slide out/slide in job. It's a Spacegard/Aprilaire filter media. If you know what that is, then you know what I mean. Not hard, but takes several minutes.